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Salac UE

We have been quiet for quite some time as our last official release announcement was about Kodi v16.1 “Jarvis” bugfix release end of April. We can assure we have not been sitting still as work for v17 progressed in a steadily pace. Our developers have actually been working on v17 since early December as a large part of our code base has been ripped out, put through the grinder and put back in a way that makes Kodi future proof which enables new and exciting possibilities. To be honest we actually wanted to do this upcoming alpha release a bit sooner (1st of May). However since we hit some code issues we decided to skip that date to first solve the problems. Next one was 1st of June however I was on holiday for some weeks and I guess we skipped that date as well. Fast forward to present day and all looks good to go and bring you the first “official” v17 alpha build which you as user can install and take for a test drive. Maybe not that exciting as some of you know we always build nightly version so you could have installed it whenever you wanted to. Still such a release marks a special milestone as it also means we’re gearing up for getting it out the door as a final version. This may still take some months though so don’t get your hopes up yet.

Krypton….

Since the dawn of time, or at least since 2008 each released version has received a code name next to the version number. Giving each development iteration a code name in a certain category is kind of a tradition that is not only applicable for software but also for hardware. Google does so for Android and Intel also names their chips. Who are we to break this tradition and as such we follow in their steps with a theme that started out with mythical places or names. For our v17 release we actually let the public chose the name and with an overwhelming majority they chose the name “Krypton”. Looking back so far at what our small team of developers has done to the code the name Krypton certainly gives a certain emphasis to it that fits. As you may have noticed it took quite some time before we came out with our first Kodi v17 alpha 1 and we have some very good reasons for that. Several years ago we set a path that we wanted to improve our codebase instead of just slapping on new features and this release will certainly be no exception to that goal. Certain parts of our code underwent a complete overhaul or in some cases even went through a blender to be almost rebuild from the ground up. Normally we highlight the main improvements for each alpha release however this time we will have to split that up in several blogs as there’s simply too much to mention in one go. More of that will be published over the coming weeks.

The improvements so far in v17

Well I guess you’ll find out soon enough by either giving it a try or wait till we do an extensive write up of most of the changes done. I say most changes cause there are far too many to even list and the the number keeps growing. One of them was already announced earlier this year which is the new default skin . Looking forward to the changes and want to try it out? You can hold of for a few days till the “official” alpha is released or already download one of the nightly versions and install it. Only difference might be that we added some additional fixes in the mean time which are also included in the nightly versions. The download links are listed at the bottom of this blog or you can jump straight to the one and only official download location

Kod:

https://kodi.tv/download/

Remember that these builds are still not ready for daily use unless you know what you are doing and want to help us do some testing. So far we have done most of the testing ourselves with the great help of the forum community that provided valuable feedback. With these alpha builds we try to gain some more attention to the general public and hopefully you are willing to help us further improve the stability of Kodi in general. These builds can simply be installed on top of your current Kodi installation. WARNING: Do make a backup of your userdata before proceeding as that gives you ability to go back.

Enough said. Downloads links are at the bottom…

The most awesome surprise in years…….

Over the years we have been playing with some random awesome and insane ideas that never came to life. Either they were to complicated, lack of skill sor we simply forgot about it as it took too long to realise. In the coming days however we will announce one of these ideas that has actually been talked about, worked on, discussed a lot and has actually been finished as well. It is something that’s way out of our comfort zone so we hope that this big surprise will be something you as users will be enjoying as much as we will.

Call out for developers

As you may or may not know is that Kodi is maintained by a group of volunteers since its first inception dating back to the original XBOX days. Over the years many volunteers have spent countless days if not months on every aspects of what makes Kodi great. This consist of writing and maintaining the code base of Kodi, expanding to new platforms, maintaining the forum, wiki, website and download server and more……

So why do we need you? Well the fact is that over the years the core team of Kodi has remained about the same size while the amount of users went from couple of thousand to many, many millions. Not forgetting the fact that it went from only a XBOX application to what is now running on Linux, Windows, iOS, OSX, Android. All this still with the same amount of people. Now comes the time that we will actually start calling out for some help. To put it simple we want to ensure that Kodi remains alive on all platforms while at the same time lowering the support burden each developer now faces these days. Each of the core developers has his own specialty and since Kodi is quite big you quickly run out of developers that know enough of certain sections. Add to that the changes needed for each operating system upgrade that happens and all the problems that arise with that.

To put it in perspective we basically have only 1 developer for each section or even complete platform. As already mentioned the entire team consists of volunteers which means everything is done in their spare time next to having an actual day time job and a personal life. This results in having only a few hours at most to spend on what they see as their hobby which i can say they are passionate about. Over the years the team consisted of many different developers who gave all they could but due to whatever reason had to change priorities which resulted in not spending time in Kodi anymore.

So in short what we are looking for are C/C++ developers who are willing to put in some of their spare time in maintaining and improving our core code. This can either be doing some minor bugfixing, reviewing existing pull requests for code contributions or even creating some of their own code refactoring or feature additions. It really doesn’t matter if you are just a student just starting out on C/C++ or are already a senior programmer. We would welcome anyone who is willing to do their part on any improvement that is needed. A fair warning is that our codebase isn’t for the faint hearted as it’s quite massive and we are quite strict regarding code review before we merge anything. However don’t let this frighten you off as our current (or outside developers) will certainly give you pointers on improvements to get it included.

What we currently need most are developers with knowledge of the following components to improve current implementations to ensure the future of Kodi as a whole:

• Windows DirectX11 / audio / video

• Android NDK / audio / video

• iOS & OSX / audio / video

• General knowledge of C/C++ and willing to do some coding in areas of their interest.

For the moment the biggest problem is our Android version which lacks the attention it needs. The audio part is mostly in good shape however the video playback part needs some attention. Any bugfix patch can be send to our main github code repository for review straight away. If you are not sure or want to take on a bigger task or change feel free to open up a thread on our forum where you write down your proposal to get some initial feedback.Conclusion

Should you want to download and install this build please visit our download page.

Salac UE

The name KryptonSince the dawn of time, or at least since 2008 each released version has received a code name next to the version number. Giving each development iteration a code name in a certain category is kind of a tradition that is not only applicable for software but also for hardware. Google does so for Android, Intel and NVIDIA also names their chips. Who are we to break this tradition and as such we follow in their steps with a theme that started out with mythical places or names. For our v17 release we actually let the public chose the name and with an overwhelming majority they chose the name “Krypton”.

Looking back so far at what our small team of developers has done to the code, the name Krypton certainly gives a certain emphasis to it that fits. As you may have noticed it took quite some time before we came out with our first Kodi v17 alpha 2 (sorry that we skipped alpha 1) and we have some very good reasons for that. Several years ago we set a path that we wanted to improve our code base instead of just slapping on new features and this release will certainly be no exception to that goal. Certain parts of our code underwent a complete overhaul or in some cases even went through a blender to be almost rebuild from the ground up.

The improvements so farThe expression don’t judge the book by it’s cover is certainly something that holds to this release. Sure we have an awesome new default skin however the vast improvements are deep in the bowels of Kodi core code. Since Kodi v16 there were 1179 pull-request (code change requests) which hold 3735 commits (code chunk changes) spread over 6679 files done by 39 different developers. As you imagine we can’t possible list all changes, improvements and whatever more we have done during the past months. Instead we’ll just list the most important or at least understandable changes for non developers. Should you which to see the full and extensive code change you can see them here and here.

Estuary and EstouchyPast March we announced that we had replaced the aging Confluence skin which did it’s job since 2009 as default skin. V17 will mark the new arrival of Estuary and Estouchy (touch enabled) skin as the new default skins. Many months have been put in getting these skins build from the ground up and utilise all of the new features Kodi has to offer. During this period we also rethought on what was actually needed for skins and with this we also added features we only came up with by rebuilding this skin as we wondered why it never was able to do it in the first place. The home screen has been revamped and now utilises a smartplaylists implementation to automatically show you what probably interests you the most. We suggest you just give it a try and see for yourself. If you still prefer Confluence skin then you don’t need to worry as it’s still available from the official Kodi repository.

For a more extensive initial review you can read: A brand new look for future Kodi versions

For support you can visit the Estuary or Estouchy forum section.

As many of you already know is that each version we also do a lot of changes to how a skin works which sadly also means not all skin will keep working in the new versions. Some of you then say we shouldn’t do this however I can tell you it’s all backed up by the people who create these skins as often they request it their selves. These changes make future skin version easier to code and more feature rich. We are happy to say that already several skins are Krypton ready: Aeon Nox 5, Amber, Confluence, Mimic, Rapier, Titan, Transparency will auto update once you install and switch to v17. We’re sure more skins will become available once we near beta, release candidate and final.

Video PlayerSince the beginning of XBMC back in the days while it was running on the XBOX there was something like DVDPlayer. As the name probably implies it was used to playback DVD discs/files. During the years this DVDPlayer was improved and patched up to stay within modern day standards of video playback expectancy. However it became clear that for the future a major overhaul and rewrite was needed to keep up and be future proof. As such the developers who did the AudioEngine in v12 picked up this job and have now transformed it into VideoPlayer. Together with some platform developers they ripped out the old DVDPlayer code, chopped it in pieces, put it in the blender, picked the needed pieces and put it back in without breaking the rest of Kodi (hopefully). This certainly wasn’t an easy job as DVDPlayer was like the bottom block of Jenga tower that needed to be replaced while still being entangled throughout the whole tower. It had it’s tentacles in parts of the code where it shouldn’t have been in the first place. Probably over a year ago work started on getting this untangled and made ready to be replaced by the new implementation.

Well now you might wonder what does this all mean? Well a whole lot and it will probably not be as clear when using Kodi as a normal user. From a developers side it means a lot as the code is now more contained in it’s own section which makes maintenance a whole lot easier. As for the users here are some things they will notice already or in the future.

First wave of changes include:• DVDplayer was very interwoven with other components, that only allowed a single instance of it. One important goal of VideoPlayer is to allow multiple instances, i.e. using VideoPlayer infrastructure for transcoding. Instead of rendering to audio device and display, it would render to an encoder which could be a file or outputted as stream to another Kodi instance. Don’t get your hopes up yet as this just makes it possible but not yet available.• Rework of videorendering, including many fixes and minor improvements for all platforms. OpenGL got new features like dithering (reduces banding when transforming from limited to full range colour space) and first round of 3dlut (look up tables stored in OpenGL units for fast access used for colour profile calibration) which has been added for next months.• Almost complete rewrite of audio/video syncing and make it more robust and accurate• Hardware acceleration for DVD playback

• VideoPlayer can switch resolution without any noticeable effect. (provided decoder support it)• Multi source demuxers of i.e. external audio files• Improve playback of live streams: PVR and streams that can be identified as live. Live streams won’t fill internal buffers after playback was started. Sooner or laters buffers will overflow or stream stalls if no special treatment is applied.

Video stream selectionYou might already know of the possibility where you can select the audio track of a movie like different languages or quality. With video stream selection you are now able to select a different video stream should that be available. Although not widely used concert DVDs are certainly a good example where you are able to select a different camera angle for watching the concert. Although this sounds like a niche feature it’s certainly important for the next feature we will bring up.

Input stream add-onsThe work done with VideoPlayer has already gained one of the most exciting new features we can think of which is Input Stream add-ons. This enables possibility of native written add-ons can now handle part of the video playback selection and just hand over the video stream to Kodi. A perfect example of this is DASH (Dynamic Adaptive STreaming over HTTP) which is something YouTube uses to give you the different video qualities depending on network speed. With Input Stream add-ons we can now have this capability as separate add-on instead of having this in the Kodi core. Here comes the video stream selection into play as you might want to select a different quality or language if made available. We’re happy to say that by default we ship the MPD add-on that handles the DASH audio/video stream selection standard and hands over the results to Kodi. The available YouTube add-on in Kodi repository doesn’t handle this feature as of yet however I’m sure it will be updated somewhere in the future.

More features will come from this complete VideoPlayer rework and we will be sure to inform you once they have been added. For now we will try to make current features work to their fullest potential.

PVR made easier and betterWith v17 the way we handle PVR add-ons has been given a makeover as well. With these changes we hope that the threshold of getting PVR running inside Kodi has been greatly reduced. Once you configured and enabled the PVR add-on you are ready. No more additional options to enable to get going. Of course you will still need to set up a PVR backend/server first however that is outside of our scope of work. Additionally a lof work has been done to improve stability and usability to this section. Switching channels, EPG (electronic program guide) as well as setting and changing recording timers have all been greatly improved. From the user interface little has changed besides the new default skin and some settings that are moved or are now a bit more clear what they do.

Android HD Audio and moreHD awesomenessAs you may have read several times is that the Android part of Kodi is currently low on development. It’s the platform with the largest user base but somehow there don’t seem to be a lot of developers around that can work on Kodi for that platform. Since Kodi isn’t the standard JAVA app like the million other out there working on it is certainly a challenge. Regardless for this release we still have some big improvements lined up. The most important one is probably what most of you have been waiting for and that is HD audio passthrough capabilities. Although we had a proof of concept for v16 it wasn’t in a state where the team was comfortable adding it that late in release cycle. However for v17 we can now tell you that passthrough for DTS, DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby ATMOS should all be working if your device supports this. The NVIDIA SHIELD TV is certainly one of the best supported devices that use the standard Android audio methods.

Android 5.0 Lollipop (or later) as minimumOver the years the Android platform started to mature and catch up to the other platforms regarding capabilities. This also means that we can drop all the custom code we had to add in the beginning to get Kodi running at all as that’s now becoming obsolete. One of those from back in the days was libStageFright which we dropped in a previous release and was replaced by the standard MediaCodec from Android. With v17 we have started to clean up all the old implementations which sadly also means we had to set the minimum Android version to at least 5.0 Lollipop. It’s uncertain at this time if we even hove to go higher and set minimum to Android 6.0 Marshmallow as this contains certain features we need to improve Kodi. For now you are safe if you at least have Android 5.0 Don’t worry you can keep using Kodi v16 on all previous Android versions however you just can upgrade to a newer Kodi version.

Welcome to Android MediaCodec standards and goodbye AMLogic specific codeOne other custom implementation is AMLogic code which is were it all started with Kodi on Android and we used this to acces certain hardware parts which Android couldn’t yet. As already mentioned Android improved a lot over the years and it now also means the custom AMLogic code can now be turned of and removed. Sadly AMLogic doesn’t follow the standard Android and releases firmware which is just a tiny bit different. This could mean that some devices might loose some capabilities as the firmware does things a bit different than we expect. This is all on the manufacturers side of these chipsets and they have to fix it. Sadly we can’t keep supporting this deviation from the standard API as we are low enough on developers already. We sure hope AMLogic will see this and start to follow the Android standard that has been set since Android 5.0 With dropping all these custom code we hope we can keep moving forward with Kodi on Android and make it much easier to maintain for the future. For Android 7 Nougat we even had a lot of help from a great guy at Google who implemented some features for us and we are looking forward on using that. This absolutely does not mean that Kodi will not work on AMLogic chipset devices anymore.

Note: You can auto receive latest alpha test builds by subscribing here. Remember this link as you need to unsubscribe as well. Warning: this will auto update all Kodi instances registered to that account.

Add-on manager changes and featuresSince v10 the add-on repository has been an integral part of Kodi and has made it a breeze for expanding the capabilities and receiving updates for these add-ons and skins. Together with the skin changes we did in Estuary we certainly hope to make the experience a bit better.

Unknown sources….First of all we added an option to warn new users that installing add-ons outside of Kodi repository could potentially bring harmful add-ons to their system. A more extensive write up (read here) explains these hazards they might get their selves into. Of course this doesn’t mean all are bad however we do feel that users should at least be warned. From now on if a user wants to install any add-on from .zip they need to acknowledge they understood the risk and enable the option to allow installation. This is a one time warning so you do not need to do this each time.

Recently installed or updateFrom now on you are able to see which add-ons recently updated. It might come in handy should some problems arise as you not always noticed the popup telling you an update was installed. At least now you are able to track down which one(s).

Setting section has been more clearOne of the things probably most of us hate the most is going through settings and see what they do. Often are not clear what they do or just not obvious. We felt the same and we have now made a big shuffle of certain settings to group them in a better way and improve the text and help description. I’m sure it’s not perfect and things still need changing however it’s already a big step forward. Additionally we’ve put a central button in settings screen for adding new media sources that you can add to your library. To make a long story short here are some screenshots to give you an idea on how it looks. Other than that I guess you’ll just have to try for yourself.

Music libraryOver the years our music library handling wasn’t always the best and luckily a while ago some developers stepped up and started improving the lacking functionality and added new features. Some improvements are better tag reading and scraping. Handling of albums and artist has also been improved with the addition of adding artist role handling for music (composer, conductor, djmixer). Certain files or websites also support mood and this has now also been added so you can now select music based on certain type of mood instead of genre.

Mention worthy changes• 10bit/HEVC hardware enabled playback on INtel or NVIDIA GPU that have the capabilities (see hardware specs)• Refactor of scrapers• Fix possible high CPU usage with GUI rendering• Playback improvement on all platforms• Support for multiple external ratings and userrating from GUI and smartplaylists• Audio and subtitle filter added to smartplaylists• Use ffmpeg for loading certain types of images and drop external libraries• Added PVR to eventlog feature• Various database optimisations• Unify behaviour of context menu• Improvements on binary add-on handling• Rework of rendercapture which is used by boblight or ambilight implementations• Removes SAP streams support• Added MVC, framepack and 3D switching support on Raspberri-Pi• Change certain settings from spinners to a list• Further improvements on DirectX implementation• Further unify certain skin windows to make it easier to make new skins without duplicating same code• Music mood scanning• Game controller add-ons• Improved tag reading from music files• Improvement on Kodi rendering system which should reduce CPU load and pave the way to headless some day• Add InProgress node for TV Shows• Fix CPU count on Android• Various changes to Kodi python API. Please check documentation• Save skin settings on early exit which should fix problems with loosing settings after restart• Improved binary add-on API• Improvements to internal webserver• Use number separators from the selected GUI language (example 1.000,4 / 1,000.4) and also apply this to ratings• Update to FFmpeg 3.0 which brings improved playback, stability and security fixes• Security and stability improvement by updating to: Python 2.7.12 / mDNSResponder to 625.41.2 / libxslt 1.1.29 / libmicrohttpd to 0.9.50 / gettext 0.19.8 / libzip 1.1.2 / libjpeg-turbo 1.4.2 / libpng 1.6.21 / lzo 2.09 / sqlite 3120200 / openssl 1.0.2h / taglib 1.11• Enable IPv6 for CURL• Added CMake building on all platforms. Still work in progress• Switch to Visual Studio 2015 building• Remove boost, CXimage, jpgIO, libsquish dependencies as they are obsolete• Auto create code documentation with Doxygen including a to-do list (link: https://codedocs.xyz/xbmc/xbmc/)• Moved old PyDocs of the Kodi API to Doxygen• Added skinning API to Doxygen• Removed dead and obsolete core code• Fixed memory leaks• Fixed possible code deadlocks• Fixed possible security flaws• Fixed possible crashes• Fixed code flaws found by various analyses tools

Salac UE

With this announcement we’re happy to release v17 alpha 3. This v17 release which the users have named Krypton features a huge amount of rework in various areas like video playback, live TV & PVR, music library, skinning and more. All these areas underwent heavy changes which are now coming to an end and ready for the masses. This means this will be the last alpha and we’ll soon be pumping out beta builds at a steady rate so the broader audience can give Kodi v17 a try. However let’s first focus on what changed this past month.

Skin features As you have noticed we included two new default skins. Estuary for regular use and Estouchy for touchscreen devices. At the same time we made sure some limitations we had to deal with in the past are now solved or at least improved. One of those was that the context menu (right click) didn’t work on any media items that were displayed on the home screen. Well now you can call up the menu like in library view.

Add-ons can now include screenshots which will be visible within Kodi itself to give you an idea how they will look.

More more changes were done in different areas however we’ll let discover those yourself.

Music library This section received a lot of love during the past year to get it up to speed again and it’s certainly catching up to the video section. Some of the improvements include better tag scanning, browsing speed ups and a lot more tag fields to be used and shown. You music enthousiast will certainly be happy with these changes so we encourage you to try it out and leave you feedback on our Kodi forum.

Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder) To make it easy i just copied the list from one of our developers on the changes that happened in this section. • Extend Kodi eventlog with PVR events, namely ‘create/delete timers and timer rules’ and ‘start/stop recordings’. • Guide window: Allow timer creation for EPG in recent past. • Timer window: Add option to hide disabled timers. • Separate windows for “Timer Rules” and “Timers”. • Guide & Search window: Add ‘Edit timer’/'Edit timer rule’ to context menu. • Timer rules window: Echo up important Status info to Timer Rules. • Guide window: Use timer logos depending on its state (needs skin support). • Added enhancement and improvements to the PVR add-on API (connection state change handling, asynchronous EPG updates, and more – needs support from the different PVR add-ons!). • Channels window: Add support for sorting channels by ‘last played’. • Recordings window: Separate TV and Radio recordings. • Guide window: performance improvements, especially on first open. • Guide & Search window: Add ‘Delete timer rule’ to context menu. • Add “ShowTimerRule” builtin, so one for instance can map a key to open the “add timer” dialog which is pre-filled to create a epg-based timer rule. • Rework PVRManager: add-ons are now owned by add-on system. • Make instant recording behavior configurable (fixed-time vs. current show vs. interactive). • Timers: Allow to change timer type for existing timers. Makes it possible to for example ‘transform’ a timer for one episode of a show to a series recording (timer rule) for that show. • Recordings window: make ‘group items’ setting persistent. • JSON-RPC api: Sync pvr types fields with current implementation. • Lots of bug fixes in all areas.

Game controller add-on In the past it has always been a pain to configure game controllers within Kodi. There were some XML files people could download and copy to a certain location. This has now been solved by making them add-ons (like almost everything else) which you can install with a click of a button. This rework of the controllers was needed for retro gaming feature which may land somewhere in the future. No sadly that doesn’t mean retro gaming will be available in v17 but we keep our hopes up for the future. Adventurous users can grab a build from our forum though here.

3dlut and simple ICC linking support for color correction Developer laurimyllari added a ColorManager class that supports loading madVR 3DLUT files, and loading ICC display profiles, creating source profiles and linking them. Users can use this to correct their display response with a 3DLUT file, or emulate other displays (with whitepoint, primaries and gamma selectable at runtime) with an ICC profile of their own display. The ICC profile linking is still work in progress, but is functional and shows what can be done with it.

Other improvements Well as always we did the usual round of bugfixes and stability improvements that happen during the entire cycle so let’s not bore you with those. Though here are some mention worthy improvements form that list.

• Added “Copy to Kodi” functionality on iOS which adds the option to the iOS share sheet of apps to “Open In” Kodi • Bump a variety of external libraries which Kodi uses to function which includes ffmpeg 3.1 • On Windows all the external libraries were rebuild with Visual Studio 2015 and received some DLL loading cleanup which hopefully solve some startup problems on some installations • Video playback got further improvements in the wake of the big change from DVDplayer to VideoPlayer

Should you wish to see the entire changelog then you find it here:

Kod:

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/86?closed=1

Conclusion Should you want to download and install this build please visit our download page. You can install these build just on top of your current Kodi installation.

* Official Kodi 17.0 development downloads (near the bottom of the page)

* LibreELEC Raspberry Pi / x86 versions can be found here

Kod:

https://libreelec.tv/download-temp/alpha-preview/

Please report any problems on our forum

Kod:

http://forum.kodi.tv

and not on the release announcement.

Don’t forget we also have some official tablet/phone remote controls for both Android and iOS. You can find the links to them on the download page.

valisaurea

Kodi v17 “Krypton” Beta 1 The changes between Alpha 3 and Beta 1 are mainly limited to minor fixes and under the hood improvements, so for this first beta, we’ll instead take some time to review a few of the really visible changes in Kodi 17.

Estuary and Estouchy Without question, the biggest visual change from Kodi 16 to 17 is the new default skin Estuary. This skin pulls a dramatic amount of content to the homescreen, including much from your music and video libraries, commonly used add-ons, and links to adding new video/music sources and installing new add-ons. It also enables color and theme changes within the skin, and overall pulls Kodi into the present day of UI design. For a full review of Estuary (and its touchscreen counterpart Estouchy), see the Estuary blogpost. Or for just a quick look, check out the Estuary trailer.

Kod:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQq0mx-wshk

should be noted that this is only the default skin. You are, of course, welcome to continue using whatever skin you might prefer, including the previous default skin Confluence.

A Cleaner, Clearer Settings Section The Kodi settings area has always seemed to require some sort of advanced degree (or a similar amount of related experience) to navigate effectively. With that in mind, we have spent the better part of a year cleaning up and reorganizing Settings with the ultimate goal of making the section, if not friendly, then at least clearer for new and journeymen Kodi users. We’ve also made it possible to point Kodi to new media sources from the settings menu, a requested feature for many years.

An Improved Music Library Many would argue that the Kodi music library has not seen the same degree of development and support as the video library over the past few years. With Kodi 17, that has changed. The improved music library now supports better tag reading and scraping, better handling of albums and artists with the addition of adding artist role (such as composer, conductor, DJ, etc.). Additionally, certain files and websites support musical “mood,” which means you can now select your music based on mood, rather than artist or genre.

Live TV and PVR/DVR Improvements For a full list, see the Kodi Alpha 3 write-up, but the Live TV and PVR/DVR component of Kodi has seen just as much improvement with Krypton as the music library. Channels can now be organized by last played, so if you really only watch 5 or 6 of your 300 channels, those can always be at the top of the list. Timers and Timer Rules are now clearer and better organized and timers are much smarter now. For example, if you set a Timer to record one episode of a show, you can transform it so that it records an entire series. And that’s really only the cream on top. Check the alpha 3 blogpost for more. Finally, only the channels you actually watch need be listed at the top

VideoPlayer While the average user might not notice this massive under-the-hood improvement, we feel remiss in not mentioning it. The switch from Kodi’s old DVDPlayer to the new, modern VideoPlayer may be one of the most massive re-writes in Kodi’s long history. A longer, and more detailed discussion of the changes in VideoPlayer may be found in the Alpha 2 write-up, but the important take-away is that this rewrite likely won’t affect users much right now, but should vastly improve the Kodi experience over the next few years.

With that said, there are some improvements you may see right away. In particular, DVD playback finally has hardware acceleration. A/V syncing has improved. Video streams can now be selected, just like different language audio streams or subtitles, useful for things like concert DVDs, where you can now select the various different camera angles, but perhaps more importantly useful for switching between different bitrates in Youtube and other online streaming sources using the DASH protocol. At present, the Youtube add-on in the Kodi repo has not yet been updated to handle this new support, but we hope to see that update in the near future.

Conclusion As previously noted, this is only a small summary of all the improvements in Kodi 17. For more, see theAlpha 2 and Alpha 3 posts.

Should you want to download and install this build please visit our download page. You can install these build just on top of your current Kodi installation.